English Poetry Literature

In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary - widely used in schools around the world - was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around 40 common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a “spell book” that will conjure back 20 of these lost words and the beings they name, from acorn to wren.

A collection of Larkin's best-known poems, read by the poet. The Sunday Sessions consists of 26 poems, the contents of two tapes recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980 - reportedly, each on a Sunday, after lunch with John Weeks, a sound engineer and colleague of the poet. The tapes contain work from Larkin's first major collection, The North Ship as well as poems from his best-known collections, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows.

A book that captures the Dirty Old Man of American letters at his fiercest and most vulnerable, on a subject that hits home with all of us. Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate madman.” Alternating between tough and gentle, sensitive and gritty, Bukowski lays bare the myriad facets of love—its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and, ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance, and redemptive power.

Sing along with Julia Donaldson and her latest collection of songs - fun for kids and parents alike. As well as being the UK's most successful picture book author, Julia Donaldson is a gifted songwriter for children. This volume includes nine of her best-loved songs. The songs will be familiar to anyone who has heard them on TV or radio, or enjoyed one of Julia's hugely popular live performances. All nine songs are sung by the author. Now everyone can sing along!

A wildly original poetry collection written and read by one of the UK’s most exciting young comics. A poet who favours dark suits, lager and long hot baths, he works on BBC Four in Charlie Brooker's Newswipe and on Radio 4, doing his late night poetry show. In 2009 he won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for his poetical recital The Slutcracker and has filmed some of his verse in black and white to overwhelming critical approval.

Wordsworth's The Prelude is the consummation of his achievement as the great founder of English romanticism. An autobiography in verse, it tells of his childhood in the Lake District, his student days in Cambridge, his passion for the French Revolution and his later disenchantment with it. It also tells of his personal journey to a belief in Nature as the great moral and spiritual force which shapes human life, but on which human society all too often turns its back.

The Divine Comedy is Dante's record of his visionary journey through the triple realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. This, the first epic of which its author is the protagonist and his individual imaginings the content, weaves together the three threads of classical and Christian history, contemporary Medieval politics and religion, and Dante's own inner life including his love for Beatrice, to create the most complex and highly structured long poem extant.

Drawing inspiration from the art of Kintsugi, the Japanese technique of mending broken pottery with gold, Carol beautifully weaves together the shattered fragments of her heart, transforming them into a life worth living. Divided into three sections, "Shattered", "In Pieces", and "Making Broken Beautiful", this book of poems chronicles the full spectrum of the grieving experience. With raw honesty, Carol illuminates the pain and loneliness that accompany loss, the disorienting struggle to adapt to a changed world, and the gentle steps towards self-discovery.

Apple is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly red on the outside, white on the inside. Eric Gansworth tells his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds. Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

Having developed an impressive reputation for his many novels and non-fiction works, Richard Wagamese now presents a collection of stunning poems ranging over a broad landscape. These are Medicine teachings told from the experience of one who lived and still lives them. He also describes his life on the road when he repeatedly ran away at an early age, and the beatings he received when the authorities tried “to beat the Indian right out of me.” Yet even in the most desperate situations, Wagamese shows us Canada as seen through the eyes and soul of a well-worn traveler.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is an epic poem, but one that upturns almost every convention. There is no main hero, no central conflict, and no sustained objective. What it is about (power, defiance, art, love, abuse, grief, rape, war, beauty, and so on) is as changeable as the beings that inhabit its chapters. The sustained thread is power and how it transforms us, both those of us who have it and those of us who do not.

Annie Zook, the Amish preacher's daughter, is caught between two worlds. Living with shunned friend Esther, Annie longs to return to her forbidden art and the idyllic days spent with Englisher Ben Martin, before her father ordered her never to see him again.... Stunned when family secrets come to light, Ben determines to solve the mystery of his past. Will his future include Annie--or will the Brethren always stand between them?

Kahlil Gibran was a master of capturing stories through poetic tales. He somehow managed to take a simple human thought or concept, and breathe life into it through his words in such a way that one cannot help but be instantly transported right into the midst of it. When you listen to Gibran’s poetry, you aren’t just listening to the words, you are listening to living breathing people; or at least it feels that way.

What starts with young Jim Hawkins meeting a beggar and ends in a climactic battle between him and one of the most infamous villains in literature — Long John Silver — has long been revered as the ultimate pirate adventure story. This non - dramatized classic will sweep you off to a world of sly and savvy seafarers as the young Hawkins navigates treachery, assassination and the ominous prophecy of the black spot in the greatest treasure hunt known to literature.

Adopting the methodology of the music charts, The Classic Hundred Poems presents the "top 100" poems of all time. The selections are illuminated by the informative notes of editor William Harmon and read by an ensemble of contemporary poets including Alfred Corn and Rita Dove.

A rich and varied collection of contemporary short stories, extracts from novels, and poetry that will go a long way toward informing the English-speaking world of the latest developments in Iranian literature. This sampling - or to use the Farsi term golchine, a bouquet - provides a window onto an important but sorely neglected segment of world culture. We hope it will also serve to awaken further interest in the work and in translations of Iranian novelists and poets.

Deep in a snowy wood stands a little pine tree with a special destiny: when it grows up, it's going to be the famous Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. The Christmas Pine is based on a true story. It celebrates a special tradition that stretches back over seventy years. Every year, the Mayor of Oslo in Norway presents the British people with a spectacular Christmas tree. The tree is a symbol of peace and friendship, and a thank you for the UK's support during World War II.

Strange as it may appear, Draupadi, the most accomplished heroine of the Mahabharata, happens to be the most suffering, most sacrificing, and yet most misunderstood character from the epic. Though counted among the five supremely virtuous women, honoured as pancha sati in mythology, the name Draupadi still bears stigma and is often contemptuously uttered by people in society as the woman who brought about the greatest war of all time. Pratibha Ray makes a determined effort to present a balanced portrayal of the epic character.

Everyone knows something of Shakespeare's sonnets, even if only in memorable fragments like "the darling buds of May", or "remembrance of things past", or "the marriage of true minds". For centuries these wonderfully crafted, intense lyrics have stood for something valued about youth, love, and the emotional complexities belonging to that time of life. This new recording presents all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets, using the New Cambridge Shakespeare texts.

In this journey of self-expression and self-exploration, Wakefield Brewster overcomes educational systems, addiction, and mental despair to deliver messages of hope, wellness, and pride in his blackness. In his own words, “In an odyssey of self awareness and societal association, I have crafted a deeper communion with the world around me.”